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Eti still operateci out of Nicosia, Famagusta and Kyrenia (in 1995), fulfilling its
basic objective of supplying the people of northern Cyprus with what the market
fails to provide, and more generally as a wholesale purchaser and retail outlet for a
diversity of products, from medicines to motorcars. It was founded as a Substitute
for market enterprise in a period of market failure. The failure to open more of its
opération to the market is perhaps a conséquence of the perceived likely failure of
the market to move into more of its area of opérations. Seemingly the concerns of
the Turkish advisors were similar to previous Turkish-Cypriot préoccupations;
strategie security interests. However, the création and development of Eti is another
example of short run expediency, carried through into the long run. As a public
sector Substitute for free market activity, the role of Eti was criticai at certain points
in Turkish-Cypriot economic history, particularly during the transition to the
establishment of a de facto Turkish-Cypriot economy in the north. Whether a public
sector trading company such as Eti was entirely necessary in the 1990s and whether
the public sector should have retained such a level of control, in terms of shares, is
open to debate. However, in its centrai role in supporting and maintaining a
Turkish-Cypriot economy in the north and in its disbursement of activities, Eti has
directly and indirectly spawned much state sector activity. Much of this activity has
continued to play a leading role, well after the conditions which justified its
existence have diminished or disappeared.
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